Hello. Through the years on the Wilderness Trapping page people will dream and question about moving to Alaska. I pondered it pretty heavily 15 years ago. The Alaska guys all mostly say it isn't cracked up to what people invision. The wilderness areas of Alaska, CO, NM, WY, MT seem to be chalked full of wanna be hippies, folks leaching off the govt., liberals, over priced land/houses/cost of living and in general maybe not what some us are dreaming of. I am not looking to move as I never will. It has got me thinking though of where are the best places to live that some of these younger dreamers long for? The requirements are: wildlife, affordable, few people, very few of the previously mentioned people, and ability to feel like one is out in the wilderness/sticks/prairie. I haven't traveled all over but what comes to mind to me is Western KS, Western NE, eastern MT, parts of the Dakotas, very select parts of the AR and MO Ozarks, and Eastern CO. Never been there but parts of ME and NY Adirondacks? Russia? What are your thoughts?

If you can handle hot summers... MS for sure. Lived here 4 years now and not had to meet a person I didn't wish to. When I lived in IL, I trapped a WMA in Iowa and felt like a frontierswoman because it was so desolate. Now I feel that same way every single day. It is heaven on earth, if you can handle the climate.

If you like the southwest desert theres some desolate places there. I was gonna buy some property not too far from moapa nevada and collect old junk before i met my wife and she set me straight.. I dont know why but the desert always cleared my mind.

out where Uncle Bulletbox lives there is a LOT of country that hasn't had a footprint on it for a long time if ever. You better be one tough hombre though if you move out that way and want to stay off of the radar.

The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day!!

there are still a few places in the u p of Michigan that a person could get away from people if they really wanted to but I found most want to build a road to there place an if you build a road they will come

Hermit in place. Just do not socialize, attend any functions, or shop in the community that you live in or answer your door. Become the Grouchy old guy that all of the neighbor kids made up stories about and were scared of when you were a kid.

Or...Do like I did and move into a small town and have a night job that is a commute.

We lived there 10 years and several people in town thought I was new in town when we moved away.I liked it that way.

There are areas of North Eastern North Dakota that would foot the bill as long as you aren't partial to trees. Most of the towns are shriveled up like a weaned sows teats. Can drive many miles on the county roads before meeting another vehicle.

I knew you'd jump in pcr2. Way north Pa can be very remote. Lots of stuff to trap and hunt. I am too young to move there now but plan to when I get kicked out of the house. Wouldn't leave PA for almost anything.

"To not read the news is to be uninformed. To read the news is to be misinformed" -Mark Twain

I'll tell you a little story about when me and the boys visited Nebraska on Vacation. The boys were probably in about 3rd and 5th grade. We were headed to the Black Hills for vacation and me wanting to see the Sandhills of Nebraska we headed west on I-80 and then North at Cody. We were going to stay the night at a lake up by Valentine. As I'm kind of cheap and simple and it being just me and my boys we were just camping out of the stock trailer. Any way we turned off the Highway on to a single lane blacktop road in the middle of nowhere to get to the lake we were staying at. Now at this turn off there was an old post with the names of about six ranches and the miles to each one of them which me being a cowboy really peeked my interest.Now my boys had never seen a single lane blacktop rode, nor had I for that matter, and it took me a lot of talking to convince my boys we weren't headed down someone's driveway. We only saw two people in probably 20 or so miles of that road. One was a cowboy with a dog box on the back for coyote dogs and another was a rancher out in the hay field putting up hay. That rancher was on a tractor at least 300 hundred yards out in the field. He waved real big at us when we passed and he was so far away I stuck my arm out the window so he could see me and waved back. Now my youngest looked at me kind of strange asked "dad did you know him”? I answered no I didn't, so his next question was why did he wave at us then? I said son they are just happy to see another human being in these parts I guess. Told my boys I was moving up there when they were grown.

That's an impossible question. You're asking where is the best place to live alone. Well, how can you answer that??? IF it was the best place to live all alone, then as soon as another hermit-to-be shows up, there goes the neighborhood! Its suddenly overcrowded.

I was in Alaska 7 yrs ago. Saw LOTS of places where someone came north to live the dream, then left a pile of crap and went back home.I like the Sandhills of Nebraska just fine. I can find people if I need to talk to someone.

A lot of good places. Wylee came up with the term I was looking for=desolate. I believe many of the traditionally desolate places that people sought (AK, CO,MT) now have one or more of the following: high cost of living, liberals, druggies, and/or high real estate. I have never been through the Sandhills but that was my main choice from talking to people that lived there.

Almost any city has abandoned areas that would suit a hermits purpose, if you get a hundred yards of the track most people will never know you're there. Ideally you should pick a climate where you can be comfortable without creating wood smoke, which will not only signal your presence but will attract curiosity. Hermiting does not require remote places, it just requires remote relations with people. You can do what Horn suggested.

Great article, thanks for the link. I don't think the OP had quite that degree of hermitage in mind when he started this thread. Takes a special kind of person to live as isolated as Christopher Thomas Knight. 99.99% of men are not as tough as him.

2x kinds of trappers1. humble/inquisitive enough to learn from all sources: young & old, near & far, written & verbal2. Legends in their own Minds

And the article doesn't claim he was self-reliant. It clearly details his stealing food and supplies found in cabins from Labor Day until 1st snow fall, and then again from snow melt until Memorial Day (basically the items that tourists decided to leave behind in their cabins all winter), so he was dependent upon them for subsistence.

But psychologically, emotionally, he needed nobody; mentally he was 100% self-reliant. He didn't need an internet forum for peer approval, like the 36,000+ of us (me included) on this forum. Had no need for communication with anybody, nor to offer or request knowledge to/from anyone. No need to show photos or see people's photos. He was a true hermit, the rest of us are, to use his description, just "dilettantes"

2x kinds of trappers1. humble/inquisitive enough to learn from all sources: young & old, near & far, written & verbal2. Legends in their own Minds

Or...Do like I did and move into a small town and have a night job that is a commute.

We lived there 10 years and several people in town thought I was new in town when we moved away.I liked it that way.

Yep. I've lived in this small town of 1000 or so for almost 27 years... The last 14 in my little house. After I graduated high school, went to work, had kids, etc... I fell out of contact with most of the town folk I knew. It just happens.

When I tell people where I'm from someone will invariably say, "Oh, well, you know so-and-so."

Nope. Never met them.

I gave up the folly of youth, drama, and never did run around and party much. You learn to disappear in a crowd that way.

There are still some places in Mn that one could (hermitage). A few of those hippies/back to nature types actuallymade a go of it,and became successful with it. Perseverance,I would say is the motivating factor.